


Wait for Me to Come Home

by Zelos



Category: Tales of Berseria, Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Sibling Love, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 06:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17319866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: A dragon may have lost his mind, but his homing instincts are true. One always, in the end, wants to come home.Edna, grieving, and letting go.





	Wait for Me to Come Home

She feels him as soon as he enters her domain, and for a breathtaking, dizzying moment she thinks it is Eizen—the same weary tread, the grit in his teeth. But his steps are lighter than Eizen’s, barely grazing the ground. The only thing he shares with Eizen is the weight of his gaze. A harbinger of death.

“Are you Edna?”

She is already turning away. “No.” Her parasol blots him out. His green-tinged domain clashes oddly with her expectations of grim-black death.

“I have news of Ufemew Wexub.”

She freezes, cracks, shatters right through the middle.

Even stones can bleed.

_Come visit me_ , she wrote once. The Reaper’s Curse had worn thin as an excuse even long before his confession. He has travelled the world with daemons and malakhim, witches and exorcists and even mundane humans with not a lick of resonance. He could not possibly believe that she would fare any worse than they. _I won_ _’t make you stay_.

Eizen did not write back for many months, and she was irate enough to write—again, unprompted, of her own spiteful initiative and not as an indulgent reply— _I can go with you too_.

When he finally wrote back, it was not his usual missive of apologies and stories about far-flung lands and crystaliron seas. It was short, too short, almost not worth the paper it was scribbled on nor the fees the Turtlez charged for delivery, two scrawled sentences etched harshly into foolscap that betrayed her brother’s flawless penmenship.

_Be sure. I won’t stop you._

She considered it—she had considered it for centuries. But she had already decided, as had he—decided every time she waited on the mountain instead of going out into the maddening world to find her idiot brother. She could, eventually, put up with the yaw of the sea and salt on the wind and the uncouth drunkards her brother calls his crew…but it’d be for him, not for her. There was nothing wrong with making, with choosing sacrifices for another so long as that choice brought more happiness than without…but she didn’t care for shiny baubles, the daredevil thrill of the chase. She would never love piracy like Eizen.

She never brought it up again. Neither did he. He still did not visit. It wasn’t because Eizen was afraid Edna would make him stay. He did not visit because he didn’t believe himself strong enough to leave.

Eizen sent another letter, and palmiers as apology. She read his tales, ate the sweets, and put the gifted relic away, tucked safe with all the other treasures he sent. She did not reply. Her silence was absolution and punishment both.

She could be selfish too.

 

Lailah frustrates Edna beyond belief. Edna understands, conceptually, that an oath bounds one to certain restrictions, but disavowing all disclosure of Maotelus and Shepherds seem diametrically opposite to Lailah’s aims (which, admittedly, is probably the point—power comes at a cost). What good is history if one must experience everything for themselves, if one could not learn from their prior incarnations’ mistakes?

A certain idiot would say it is about the journey, not the destination, that living those experiences is what allows each of them to chart their own courses through life’s seas. He wasn’t wrong, perhaps, for a man who’d walked with one Lord of Calamity and stopped another.

But she did not choose this path for principles and righteousness. Sorey promised her he’d give Eizen another chance. Sorey has earned enough of Edna’s faith that she’d see the business with kittybeard through, but make no mistake: her goal has always been a selfish one. If Lailah wants Sorey to chart his own course, fine, but Eizen is not, cannot, should not be part of that deal.

In one of his letters, Eizen mentioned a bit of ancient history he had unearthed: the malakhim’s descendance from seraphim, guardian dragons yearning for home, a shared dream of coexistence. _You are more seraphim than malakhim, little sister._

She didn’t appreciate the irony until Eizen flew back. A dragon may have lost his mind, but his homing instincts are true. One always, in the end, wants to come home.

She corners Lailah one day in a fit of temper, levels her parasol like a sword. “You can keep Michael’s secrets, I don’t care. But we both know why I came. Tell me that.” Her voice is hard like stone, sharp like flint. The memories of newly-saved Lords of the Land flicker in front of her eyes like flames. In Eizen’s time, they would’ve been unsalvageable too. “You owe me that.”

Lailah clasps her hands and slumps. “Once a seraphim becomes a dragon, even the flames of purification can’t salvage them. That’s all I know. Anything else…is hope.”

“Then tell me how it works. Why are we _waiting_ , hoping to chance upon truths?” Her fists tighten on her parasol handle, her voice pitching high. “Why are we not _searching_ , taking chance by force?”

She has lived through Maotelus’ ascent, watched him purify the world the first time. Felt that power, that divine grace. If Maotelus could walk with the reaper, could purify the entire world, she has to believe Eizen has a chance too.

It is Zaveid who pulls her off, and she punches him too. He winces—her fists are as strong as the earth—but stays. “Edna. Oaths have their price.”

“Is that your oath too?” she spits. The price of breaking the oath is a secret too. She hates them all.

He shakes his head, and the sudden grief on his face cleaves her in two. “No. Just a promise between men.” Hope is a curse, strung gossamer between them, flashing purple like a dragon’s scales. Vessels, even ones as pure as the Shepherd, do not preclude malevolence, only slow its taint; these days, Zaveid has lived longer than most. “Eizen did me a favour, once. I promised I’d pay back that debt.”

An oath to keep, a promise to fulfill, a price for when they break. A debt coming due.

What exists in between that space, but regret?

 

Later, later, so much later, she finds Zaveid on the tallest wall of Pendrago, pilfered bottle in hand. His eyes are not red. He does not weep.

She sits down and clips her parasol. The nor doll hanging from it bumps against the stone. “Waiting for someone?”

“Saying a prayer for someone.” He fills the glasses, one, two, three. He has done this before.

Of course he has. Eizen had too. Malakhim, she has long since learned, are cursed with farewells.

She blinks the soreness from her eyes, squinting at the label. “ _Vindication_? Odd name for a drink.” Her hand trails to the pendant at her throat.

He rumbles a laugh, habitual airiness exchanged for gravity. “Irony is, it’s the drink for mourning a lost cause.” He swirls the drink in its glass, blue-hued like the sea. “Always thought my creed would be stronger than his.”

She looks down at her own glass. The liquid lapping at the ice looks like waves. “You wouldn’t have killed him?” A promise is a promise, but Eizen had broken his too.

He looks down at Siegfried, at the secrets it still keeps. A spark of gold burns a hole in his pocket, and in both of their hearts. It had fallen out once, and Zaveid had hastily shoved it away, but Edna can recognize Dhaos anywhere—it is only slightly less recognizable to her than Eizen’s own face. Sometimes, in her dreams, it’s Eizen’s face on the coin.

She lets him keep it. The pendant with her portrait was lost long ago, tumbled away midair during a dragon’s flight. She has her brother’s gloves and boots and a room full of shiny things. She won’t begrudge Zaveid this.

“Dragons are strong,” he says finally. “And Eizen was never weak to begin with.”

Eizen had died centuries before they laid him to rest. Zaveid had shot Eizen with Siegfried a few times, but always zoomed off to look for more bullets, more shots, more hopes in the dark. Edna had never needed to defend Eizen and Zaveid from each other. Zaveid hadn’t been strong enough alone.

She picks up her glass and clinks it against his. The last, she saves for Eizen. He always appreciated a good drink. Somewhere on the wind, Ufemew Wexub is sailing on new, uncharted seas.

The drink is sweet, almost fruity, with a bitter aftertaste. Disillusion must taste this cold. 

**Author's Note:**

> Canonically, Zaveid actually never tried to kill Eizen by himself: in the skit _A Promise Between Men_ Edna asked what score Zaveid had to settle with Eizen and Zaveid wouldn't tell her, and on the walk up to Rayfalke Spiritcrest she sounded genuinely shocked at the promise ("'When I turn into a dragon, kill me; I don't want Edna to suffer.'" "That's so selfish of him!"). Neither conversation would happen if Zaveid had attempted to kill Eizen in the interim centuries between games. Dragons are the strongest daemons and it's likely Zaveid knew he was outmatched (even without Edna trying to break it up)...but I think part of his old creed lingered too, because it was _Eizen._
> 
> I don't think the games actually specified all oaths are paid with their lives; I assumed it depended on the terms and powers granted. Claudin Asgard extended his life by never killing, and thus paid with his life when he broke the oath. Since Lailah gained the purifying Silver Flame with her oath, I headcanon breaking that oath would cause her to become a dragon, as is fitting for the terms of the oath.
> 
> The backstory of malakhim descending from seraphim is a tidbit revealed at the Heavenly Steppes in Berseria.


End file.
